Dream
by DarkHairedVeela
Summary: Longshot teaches Smellerbee a not so conventional way of coping. But they would survive this. It would be okay.


Smellerbee sniffled, rubbing her armed sleeve against her oozing nose. There was a choked sob trapped deep in her throat and she was afraid that if she even opened her mouth to breathe it would escape, and oddly enough that one trapped sob was the only thing keeping her sane. She bit her lip, a voice in her head kept whispering _Go on, just a little harder, make it bleed, and you'll feel better_. There were people bumping into her but she didn't care, being pressed against the strange people of Ba Sing Se comforted her. The pressure of everyone made her feel safe. She had become afraid of open spaces throughout her life.

She dared a glance at Longshot—they hadn't "spoken" to each other since . . .

The girl gulped, feeling IT, coiling inside of her. She felt the trapped sob jump up her throat. _NO. Smellerbee get a hold of yourself, girl_, she thought to herself.

Longshot was about twenty feet in front of her. She could barely see him through the crowd. It was his hat that stood out. His hat had always been one of her favorite things about him. She liked the way it moved as he did. Longshot had his head bent down as he stared at his feet, like usual. Smellerbee could see the back of his neck—he looked so vulnerable there to her. The skin was hardened by the sunny summer but it had no blemishes. It looked smooth, and Smellerbee could remember how he looked when they were even younger.

The sob began to swirl around at the back of her mouth. For a moment she panicked. She wasn't sure if she could keep going if she broke down in the middle of the street. Longshot would lose her, he wouldn't look back. He was too distracted to notice his surroundings much. He was too sad, too sad about—IT.

Smellerbee quickly sucked in a breath and held it. She ran up to Longshot, the effort nearly killing her straining lungs. By the time she got to him, she let herself begin to breathe again slowly.

"Longshot?" she asked in her ever husky voice. She needed to be distracted—distracted by something nice, and so did he. She reached for his wrist, not fully holding it, but her fingers were pressed against his heartbeat. "Do you remember when we were little?"

Longshot inclined his head towards her in a small nod.

"Do you remember how the stars looked? Do you remember how different everything felt in the treetops?"

Longshot's lips twitched in neither a smile nor a frown.

"Do you remember when I would laugh when I hung from branches by my legs?" Smellerbee smiled. "Do you know why I did it?"

"Why?" he mumbled.

"Because you yelled at me. It was the only thing that got you talking to me," she said removing her fingers from his warm, pulsing skin.

They walked in silence until Smellerbee began to hear a faint sniffling. Her eyes widened when she turned to look at Longshot to witness a large tear droplet roll down his cheek to his chin where it hung for an impossibly long time. Smellerbee felt like that tear drop. She was just barely holding on. She watched as the tear wriggled as Longshot kept walking before it began its descent to the dusty cobblestones.

The boy bent his head even further than usual, his chin nearly touching his chest. Smellerbee watched from the corner of her eye as his mouth ripped until a hole was revealed to the world. It was rare for Longshot to speak and when he did he didn't open his mouth very much to do so. But now, he looked like he was holding in a scream.

She felt IT gurgle inside her like toxic waste.

When Longshot raised a fist to his mouth to bite on his knuckles to keep the sobs in Smellerbee reached out and took hold of the strap of his quiver. She guided him gently before finding a tavern where she bargained for a room. Longshot was crying freely by the time they entered their new room so Smellerbee shut the door quickly.

She felt jealous for a minute. She wanted so badly to just let everything go like he was but she couldn't do that to him. Only one person was allowed to cry at a time.

She smiled slightly at a distant memory. Longshot and Smellerbee crying at the same time got nothing resolved.

She grabbed hold of Longshot and led him to the bed where they lay down facing each other. His tears began to dampen the blankets. Then something startling happened. A sound that could only be described as a wail came from Longshot. He had never made a sound so loud before. Smellerbee yelped when his arms shot out and clutched her to him. He had his face buried into her chest as his muffled sobs continued.

"Do you remember when I pushed you into the creek?" she asked, as she removed his hat—the top of it had been jabbing her in the chin. "Do you remember when he had that food fight? It was your birthday." Smellerbee placed her cheek on the top of his head. His hair was damp from sweat but she didn't mind it. They were always sweaty. "Remember how we felt safest at night? When we flew across the sky on our trees?" Smellerbee blushed slightly. "Do you remember when . . . you kissed me?"

"Smellerbee," Longshot mumbled.

But she wasn't listening anymore. She wasn't talking to him anymore. She had forgotten he was there. She was too lost in her memories. They had become better than reality. They were a reality that she had to walk from because everyone walked away from their past. She was too far gone.

"Do you remember when nearly cut your arm off? When you tried to teach me how to shoot an arrow and I almost blasted your eye out? When we fought the Fire Nat—?"

"SHUT UP!" Longshot had her pinned as he glared down at her. Her eyes were wide.

"What . . ."

"Shut up. You're so stupid, Smellerbee! Don't you get it? We wouldn't have had any of that without him! And now he's _dead_. And you're just telling these stories and you're not even mentioning him . . ." he trailed off before shaking her violently.

"I didn't think you wanted to talk about him," she said feeling her eyes begin to burn. "I thought you . . ."

"Stop thinking."

"I just wanted—"

"Stop wanting."

Something was changing between them. Smellerbee kept trying to find loopholes but it was becoming harder and harder every time he breathed on her.

"But I feel like we—"

"Stop feeling," he said, gliding his tongue along her lips. "Stop talking." Smellerbee breathed him in, grabbing hold of his shoulders when they began to stop existing.

They would be okay. It didn't matter that Jet had died; they had to keep living for him, for the rest of the Freedom Fighters even though it was the end. Their past in the treetops would live on in their dreams.

Longshot and Smellerbee began their dream.


End file.
